Friday, December 14, 2012

Egypt: Tension, Conflict & Chaos Rein On Eve Of Vote

With only a few hours to go until the polls open in the
first phase of Egypt’s referendum on a proposed constitution, tension is high.
Alexandria has become a symbol of this tension when a controversial local imam,
Ahmed El-Mahalawy, urged worshippers to vote yes.

Mahalawy has a long history of urging sectarian attacks
against Christians and non-believers. But even in his mosque he was challenged
by a worshipper who was immediately set-upon by Muslim Brotherhood worshippers
who beat him.

Ultimately conflict spilled outside the mosque, including
the arrival of conservative Salafists with swords and knives. A gathering of
anti-constitution protesters disarmed and beat the men and torched their cars
before the riot police arrived. However, as we went to press the mosque was
still surrounded after the imam took several protestors hostage and tortured
them.

It was unclear if any of the protesters were still inside,
several had been released.

There were also other scattered reports of oppositionists
being attacked and Muslim Brotherhood offices being vandalized. It’s clear that
tensions across the country are extremely high.

This situation hasn’t been helped by the continuing
inflammatory rhetoric by Muslim Brotherhood leaders, including President Morsy,
and their Salafist allies. Morsy made a speech denouncing the opposition as
counter-revolutionaries. There has been talk of thousands of martyrs and death
threats against TV news anchors.

It remains to be seen what will happen when the polls open
but there is every possibility, given the shambolic way that the Brotherhood
and Morsy have handled the present crisis up till the present, that chaos will
be the order of the day.

The sense on the ground is that few preparations have been
made and that there aren’t even enough neutral observers, let alone outside
observers & NGOs, to guarantee a fair vote.

With the majority of judges boycotting supervising the
election Morsy had to pass a law splitting the vote up into two dates. But even
with this measure to ameliorate the pressure on the few that have agreed to
supervise, it is possible that there won’t be enough. It’s not even clear if
the government knows who will and who won’t supervise.

"The commission has published
on its website the names of judges who are scheduled to supervise the
referendum, but I assure you that among those names are 2,930 judges who
decided to boycott the elections' oversight," said Judges’ Club spokesperson
Shady Khalifa.

It’s entirely possible that people will show up at
their polling stations – if they know where they are located – and won’t be
able to vote or the poll will be unsupervised. The entire legal status of this
constitution, rushed through by the Brotherhood and their allies, could be
called into doubt.

There is every likelihood that the Brotherhood’s
heavy-handed fumbling of this self-inflicted political crisis will haunt them
and that even a formal victory in the referendum will lack legitimacy. Combine this
with the looming austerity measures – announced and then withdrawn by Morsy
this week – and there is a recipe for further social explosions.

Whatever else happens, the Brotherhood has badly damaged
their reputation. It’s not clear how they’ll recover.